


On My Mind

by lannisterslioness



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: F/M, Jealousy, Stubborn, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4618920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannisterslioness/pseuds/lannisterslioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off the tumblr prompt I got from redheadswifts: "Months after they broke up for the second time, Claire & Owen are on separate dates in the same place. Both trying to unintentionally sabotage each other's date bc they're stubborn pricks that won't admit they still love each other"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A True Gentleman

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Okay, so I made this slightly AU, idk why but I started writing and oops it happened. In this, Claire and Owen still work together but they basically work at a zoo, I think I ended up writing it this way because I wanted to fit in their dates? Either way, I hope you guys like it! This is part one of three (I know, I'm a sucker for breaking things into parts, I clearly love leaving you with cliffhangers mwahaha) and this part is following Claire, the second part will be mostly following Owen until the last part, which will probably be both of them. xoxo

     Claire had spent hours getting ready for her date tonight, and strangely enough, she didn’t feel nervous in the slightest bit. Zara had introduced her, or rather set her up, with Ryan a week ago; he was someone new that Mr. Masrani had hired to care for the pair of white Bengal Tiger cubs that he had found and had just arrived a few days ago. She knew that Zara had meant well in trying to get her to go out with someone new, it had been six months since her and Owen Grady had broken up for the _second_ time after all. Yet, while Claire had picked out the restaurant and spent all this time getting ready for her date, she didn’t feel the same nervousness she felt whenever she went out on a date with Owen. Claire had assumed that it was a good thing; maybe it was a sign that things wouldn’t go horribly wrong with Ryan, but it just felt like something was missing.

 

      “Don’t dwell on Owen,” Claire told herself, “tonight is not about Owen Grady.”

 

     What drove Claire crazier than anything else in the world was the fact that she couldn’t figure out why Owen had gotten under her skin. She thought about him more than she should have, especially after two failed attempts at a relationship. He could be the most arrogant person in the world when he wanted, he seldom took things seriously, and he _always_ had a way of getting her mad – sometimes even furious. But there were times, as few and far in-between as they’ve been, where she saw a different side to Owen – the part of him that was kind and genuine, and somehow made an actual connection with the four orphaned lion cubs Mr. Masrani had put him in charge of. The bottom line, however, was that Owen drove her crazy, no matter which way she looked at it.

 

     Zara had promised that Ryan was in no way like Owen; Ryan took the important things seriously, he was a gentleman, and most importantly – at least according to Zara – he was ‘the marrying type’. Then again, Zara had seemed hell-bent on finding Claire someone she could settle down with ever since she had gotten engaged; Zara was slowly starting to get worse than her sister Karen in that department.

 

     Claire found herself being a bit relieved when the doorbell finally rang, going out on her date would be a great way to escape her own thoughts. Ryan was already off to a better start than Owen, he was actually on time for their date, where if Claire recalled correctly, on her last date with Owen he was about a half hour late, maybe more.

 

     “You look…beautiful.” Ryan beamed as soon as Claire opened the door.

 

     “Oh, uh, thank you.” Claire answered, caught a bit off guard by the sudden compliment; not that Owen had ever complimented her before.

 

     _Stop thinking about Owen, you’re on a date with Ryan – **not Owen**_ , Claire had to mentally remind herself.

 

     “You look great too.” Claire stated awkwardly, she was thankful that Ryan seemed to understand her awkward moment and just smiled in return.

 

     “Ready to go?” He asked.

 

     “Yeah, let’s go.” Claire nodded.

 

     Ryan offered Claire his arm, which she took gratefully and walked out of her apartment side by side with him. At least so far Zara had been right about him being a gentleman.

 

 

* * *

 

 

     When they had finally gotten to the restaurant, Claire finally felt a bit nervous, but nothing compared to any nerves she’s felt in the past. She still felt in control of the situation somehow, and Ryan so far had been nothing but a perfect gentleman. Firstly, he hadn’t showed up for their date in board shorts as if he’d just gotten back from the beach; and second, he actually showed up on time. But despite all of that, she missed Owen’s jokes, she missed jesting back and forth with him, she missed hearing him go on for hours about the lion pride he took care of, most of all she missed being able to talk to him about anything and everything that came to mind.

 

     _Control yourself Claire, stop thinking about Owen; for the sake of this date just please stop thinking about Owen. We broke up because we just didn’t work out, things kept coming up, we just couldn’t make it; don’t ruin this date_ , Claire mentally scolded herself.

 

     “So, what’s it like running the whole park?” Ryan asked, his question dragging Claire out form the depths of her mind and back to focus on what was right in front of her.

 

     “Oh, well, it keeps me on my toes. Mr. Masrani has a habit of thinking up new nearly impossible things every day and I have to find a way to make it happen.” Claire shrugged.

 

     “You sound like Wonder Woman.” Ryan smirked. “Didn’t they just start building that new aviary for the condors?”

 

     “Yes, it’s supposed to be done in four months, but with the way the condors are growing in the hatchery it’ll need to be done sooner.” Claire sighed.

 

     The San Diego Preserve for Endangered Animals had become Claire’s life over the years, and while she found it hard to take Owen’s advice and actually care for the animals past the numbers on her spreadsheets, she found herself stressing out over them more often than not. Now with Mr. Masrani’s crazy idea of trying to use genetic engineering to bring back animals from extinction, or save those on the brink, it only added more stress to Claire’s life. As of right now, Mr. Masrani planned on using genetics to bring the California Condor back form the brink of extinction, and so far the genetics part of his plan had been working as there were twelve baby condors in the hatchery. The only problem was while the birds grew rapidly, construction was another story, and as of right now their habitat was only halfway done – if that.

 

     “We can talk about something else if you want.” Ryan offered, noticing her stress.

 

     “No, it’s fine.” Claire reassured him. “How are the tigers?”

 

     “Oh, well, Ghost is getting pretty big, he’s unfortunately figuring out how to use those big teeth he’s got. And Kala is a big fan of me carrying her everywhere, only now she’s getting to the point where she’ll be as big as me in a few weeks.” Ryan laughed. “She’ll still try to get me to carry her though.”

 

     “They sound kind of adorable.” Claire admitted with a small grin.

 

     Ryan went on for a while longer about the tiger cubs and how they were bonding with him. After a bit Claire told him about her sister and her nephews, and how the boys, especially Gray, couldn’t wait to visit her over the summer and see the new condors. Things were going well, almost a bit too well, and after they ordered their dinner, Claire knew her date was going from great to horrible.

 

     “Oh, shit.” Claire mumbled to herself.

 

     “What’s wrong?” Ryan asked.

 

     “Nothing.” Claire quickly replied, though her glare kept drifting over to the other side of the restaurant, not far from where they sat.

 

     Owen Grady, of all the people to show up in this restaurant on this night, with some beautiful brunette with him as his date. Claire was a mixture of emotions, the dominant one being jealousy – though she would never admit it out loud. She was furious that Owen was here, ruining her perfectly good date with Ryan; she was jealous that the girl, whoever she may be, got to be out with Owen and laughing at his horrible jokes; and though it wasn’t a pressing matter, despite all the times he told her that he hated dressing up, there he was – perfectly dressed and not a pair of board shorts in sight.

 

     _This is going to be a long night,_ Claire finished off the rest of her wine and started wondering if she’d need another to get through the rest of the night.


	2. A Partial Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry this took an extra day, but it's longer than the first part so hopefully that makes up for it! Sometime later this week I should have the last part done, I'm going to go work on it now! Either way, I hope you guys enjoy, and I hope you have a lovely day :3 xoxo

     Owen wasn’t a dating type of person, the very thought of it made him cringe half the time. Everyone had always made it out to be a big deal; you had to get dressed up and go out somewhere just to basically talk to someone you had an interest in. He’d always hated getting dressed up to begin with ever since he was young, adding the pressure of dates on top of being stuffed into some uncomfortable get up just sounded like a bad time to him. Then he had to go and fall in love with Claire Dearing; the striking redhead who had a fixed point of view on everything – such as that dates were meant for getting dressed up and going out. The first time they tried dating, their date had ended in and Owen thought he’d never end up out with Claire again, which had been partially true; the second time they sort of…fell together.

 

     One of the lions in the pride Owen took care of had to be put down due to an illness that caused the elderly lion more pain than good and Claire had just been there to comfort him, showing some semblance of caring for the animals she was in charge of for the first time.  She stayed the night at his place and just stayed with him, naturally after a few more nights they ventured where they never thought they would after their first date, and everything was fine between them – until Claire tried to get them to go out again. In hindsight, it was petty, it was enough to spark a stupid fight between them and cause them to break up; Owen regretted not just going out with her, getting dressed up, and trying to enjoy it. He realized all of this once it was already too late and now Claire would try to avoid all contact with him if she could help it, usually sending her assistant Zara in her place.

 

     Today, Owen had a matter that demanded Claire’s attention – not Zara’s – and he found himself getting a bit nervous on the elevator up in the office building. The minute he got to Claire’s part of the building, he saw Zara already scowling at him, rolling her eyes while she was on the phone.

 

     “I’ll have to call you back.” She said and hung up her phone. “What do you want, Mr. Grady?”

 

     “I have to see Claire, this stuff is none of your business.” He held up the folder of paperwork with a smirk.

 

     “Miss Dearing left early today, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.” Zara had a confident grin plastered on her face now. “I’d try sometime after lunch tomorrow.”

 

     “What? Is she sick or something? Claire never leaves early.” Owen knew that if she were sick it must have been horrible for her to actually leave, and thinking of Claire that sick made him more worried than he ever thought he would be.

 

     “No, Mr. Grady. She’s not sick, she simply chose to leave early.” Zara sighed.

 

     “Why?” Owen asked.

 

     “That is, what did you say earlier? Oh, right, _none of your business_.” She smirked. “Goodbye, Mr. Grady.”

 

     Owen turned around on his heels and left, he knew no matter how many questions he asked Zara, she’d never tell him anything, but he did happen to know someone who knew just about everything that happened in the Preserve, it was his job after all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

     The security for the preserve was in the basement of the building, technically one needed clearance to get on the security floor, but seeing that Owen liked to think of himself as a friendly guy and George owed him a favor anyway, he managed to get down there to have a little chat with Lowery. Lowery was a strange guy to say the least, and while he probably would have gotten better answers out of the girl Vivian who works down here with Lowery, she was on vacation for the next week and Lowery was his only hope.

 

     “First off, my job is to watch the cameras,” Lowery stated. “I’m not Gossip Girl, okay? I don’t follow everyone’s waking moment in this place. My job is to make sure that if I see a visitor or one of you guys getting mauled and eaten by a vicious animal, that I contact the proper authorities, or if one of these things ever gets out to send out an alert.”

 

     “And believe me, good to know your watching my back out there, but I know you have a crush on Zara, you practically shut down whenever she crosses your path, and Zara just so happens to plan every minute of Claire’s life.” Owen grinned while Lowery tried to hide his blushing.

 

     “Fine,” He said, clearing his throat, “alright, this entire week whenever I’ve heard Zara coming in during the morning, she’s been bragging to Claire about the new guy with the white Bengal Tigers. She’s been talking him up, saying how happy she is that Claire agreed to going out with him.” Lowery admitted. “I saw Claire leaving on the camera’s around lunchtime, new guy left a few minutes after her.”

 

     “ _Shit_ ,” Owen sighed. He was perhaps the biggest idiot in the entire galaxy for letting a woman like Claire slip away from him, all because of something stupid no less. “Do you know where they’re going?” He knew he’d probably do something stupid, Claire would probably never speak to him again but they were already well on their way there; Owen figured that at least now she’d have a big reason to never speak to him again and probably recommend that he be fired.

 

     “Uh, I think I heard Zara throw around the name _Luna’s_? That’s like that fancy Italian place uptown or something, isn’t it?” Lowery asked.

 

    “Wait, Luna’s?” Owen asked, he’d heard the name before, not only had Claire always wanted to go there, but there was someone he knew of in the park whose family just happened to own the place. “Is Kristen working today?”

 

     “Uh, hold on.” Lowery said as he stared flipping though the cameras until he ended up on the Bearded Seal enclosure. “Yeah, she’s still here, why?”

 

     Before Owen even heard Lowery’s questions, he was already on his way out the door and on his way to the seal enclosure.

 

* * *

 

 

     Kristen, like Lowery, was strange, but thankfully not in the same way. As Owen had quickly learned, Kristen was a determined person who took anyone’s lack of love for marine animals as an almost personal offense. Her seals had loved her just as much, if not more, than Owen’s lions had loved him.

 

     “Kristen, I need a favor.” Owen called out, she continued to ignore his presence and kept feeding her seals that were gathering around her like a flock of seagulls.

 

     “No.” She replied without a moment of hesitation.

 

     “Come on Kris, pretty please?” Owen asked with a big grin, to which Kristen replied with an ever so subtle eye roll. “I just need you to kinda pretend to be my date and get us into your family’s restaurant tonight.”

 

    “Oh, that’s all?” Kristen asked with a laugh. “Why on earth do you need me to be your fake date at my family’s restaurant?”

 

     “Uh, well, Claire-“

 

     “Oh hell no.” Kristen cut him off. “No way, if this has anything to do with Claire Dearing, I’m out. I will _not_ be the idiot who gets on her bad side, especially over you. Every girl with a brain in her head around here knows that unless they want to end up in the shark tank, you are _so_ off limits.”

 

     “I can explain it all to her, I just need to get in there tonight and…talk to her before things between her and the tiger guy get too serious.” Owen sighed.

 

     “Jesus Owen,” Kristen sighed, “what if your grand plan to talk to her backfires? Did you think about that? When Mr. Masrani isn’t here, which is practically all the time, Claire runs this place. She could have both of us fired in the blink of an eye and I don’t know about you, but I like my job, I also like my life free of drama, and this plan you have? If it all goes to hell, I will not only incur the wrath of Claire Dearing, but her assistant Zara who is probably an even bigger bitch than Claire if possible, no offense.”

 

     “Claire won’t fire you, she’s bigger than that, and she wouldn’t stoop to firing people she doesn’t like in her personal life. She wouldn’t even make your life hell, Zara maybe, but not Claire. Claire is a professional, she might avoid you as much as possible, but she won’t fire you.” Owen assured her.

 

     Kristen was silent for a moment, thinking it through while her seals kept trying to go for the bucket of fish she had in her hand.

 

     “Well, if all else fails, I’ll have one less thing to worry about in that case.” Kristen shrugged. “Fine, let me go grab Kyle and have him finish up with these guys, I need to shower the fish smell off of me. I’ll give my sister a call, she’s working there tonight, she’ll hold a table.”

 

     “Thank you.” Owen felt as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

 

     “You owe me for this, Grady.” Kristen said.

 

 

* * *

 

 

     “You know, if you glare over there anymore, you might _actually_ burn holes into the back of his head.” Kristen mumbled, trying to occupy herself with looking over the menu. “Too bad you don’t have laser eyes, this whole plan of yours would have gone a lot quicker if you did.”

 

     “Sorry.” Owen grumbled and tried to shift his attention to the wine in front of him instead.

 

     “I’m not actually your date, remember?” Kristen reminded him, Owen just shrugged in return. “Please tell me you have more to your plan other than glaring at the tiger guy and making sad puppy dog eyes at Claire?”

 

     “Haven’t thought that far ahead.” Owen admitted.

 

     “Well, I guess I’ll just have to do all the work around here then.” Kristen put down the menu and quickly glanced behind her.

 

     “What are you doing?” Owen hissed.

 

     “God, she’s just as bad as you.” Kristen grinned. “Just…trust me.”

 

     In a matter of seconds, Kristen started giggling, keeping the broad grin on her face, and she was reaching out and grabbing a hold of Owen’s hand. Owen was entirely confused as to what was happening in front of him, and it wasn’t until he felt Kristen’s heel kick him in the shin that he realized what she was doing.

 

     “Earth to Owen, play along.” Kristen whispered.

 

     Owen caught on, playing off of Kristen’s act while they tried to play two people who actually wanted to be on a date with each other. Owen tried to tell her some jokes to keep her laughing somewhat real, and either she actually found some of them funny or she was surprisingly good at acting. After a while, Kristen slowly returned to her normal self and took a glance behind her again before facing Owen.

 

     “Alright, I’m sure she wants to claw my eyes out now.” Kristen sighed. “One last thing though…”

 

     “What?” Owen asked, confused as Kristen rose from her seat and stopped beside him.

 

     “She’ll more than likely get up and follow me shortly after this, I’ll handle it, but you _so_ owe me for this.” Kristen mumbled before she put on her fake smile and leaned in, giving Owen a kiss on the cheek. “You can thank me later.”

 

     Sure enough, a minute after Kristen walked off, Owen saw Claire politely excuse herself from her table and follow Kristen without so much as casting a glance in his direction.


	3. You Drive Me Crazy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: FINALLY! I FINISHED IT! I originally wanted to have this done by Thursday or even Friday but I let a little thing called procrastination get in the way and I had to fight the urge to procrastinate again today but IT’S DONE. I hope you guys like this final part! I just want to say thank you for all the love I’ve been getting on all my Clawen stories on here and on AO3, hopefully I’ll be writing some more soon, maybe even an actual story with more than three parts? Who knows! Either way, I hope you all have a lovely Saturday and thanks again to redheadswifts for this wonderful prompt!! xoxo

     Claire had never been much of a jealous person, she had never let herself stoop down to that level, and no one had ever driven her crazy enough to the point of jealousy before. She’s almost positive that somehow Owen found out that she was coming here on her date tonight, though she’s not sure how as Zara would have rather jumped in the shark tank than tell Owen anything. Yet, he was here, and after glaring at the girl he brought with him for a while, Claire knew she had seen her before somewhere in the park, though she couldn’t remember her name – it was something that started with a K, that much she was sure of.

 

     Standing outside the bathroom door, Claire realized that for the first time, she had absolutely no plan as to what she was going to do. She knew she couldn’t exactly yell at the girl, Claire had no right to, and it would be completely unprofessional especially since she was sure Owen’s date worked in the park. Claire supposed she could strike up a conversation with her at the sinks, see what she had to say about Owen, but something about it all seemed so juvenile. Claire knew she should go back to Ryan, it wasn’t her place to be here, to be trying to spy on Owen or attempt to ruin his date when she was already ruining her own so spectacularly. She was beginning to walk away when the bathroom door pulled open, bringing her face to face with Owen’s date.

 

     “God, you’re slow.” She mumbled as she grabbed Claire’s arm and dragged her into the bathroom, shutting the door behind them.

 

     _Kristen, the seal behaviorist,_ Claire remembered now as she got a good look at the woman’s face.

 

     “I’m sorry, what are you talking about?” Claire asked as she pulled her arm away from her grasp.

 

     “What I’m talking about is that whole show out there with Owen should have had you storming in here and threatening to kill me, at least it would have for most girls. Unless I completely misread something in your death glares back there and you don’t like Owen at all and just have a general hate for people being happy.” Kristen stated without hesitation.

 

     “Show?” Claire asked. “What do you mean _show?_ ”

 

     “I mean there are some pretty stupid guys out there that come up with pretty stupid plans to get their ex-girlfriends back. Usually though, it’s to get back at them, not to exactly get them back. Owen’s only plan was to come all the way down here and stare at you from across the room until one of you were probably driven to the point of insanity and started fighting. Not a very good plan if you ask me.” Kristen shrugged. “So I helped him.”

 

     “Owen knew I was going to be here? I don’t believe this.” Claire grumbled and pinched the bridge of her nose.

 

     “He’s dedicated I’ll give you that.” Kristen smirked. “But, I don’t know of many guys who would actually go through with a whole fake date in attempts to get his ex-girlfriend back that he’s clearly still in love with. Also, I’ve never been face to face with two people more stubborn than you two.”

 

     “Owen’s not in love with me, not anymore.” Claire suddenly felt a bit insecure talking about it, her and Owen had never gotten to the point of saying I love you, though she was sure she felt it on more than one occasion.

 

     “Are you kidding me?” Kristen asked with a laugh. “He wouldn’t shut up about you on the way here, if I had been his actual date I would have told him to take me back home and then slap him in the face for not shutting up about his ex. He talked about how kind you could be, and how you do actually care about the animals, and god, he went on and on. If I were a guy, I’d probably be in love with you too at this point after listening to Owen all that time.”

 

    Claire wasn’t quite sure how to answer that, instead she remained silent and couldn’t help but smile a bit, hearing that Owen still cared.

 

     “I’m not going to be the stranger you barely know that tells you to run out there and declare your undying love for they guy.” Kristen sighed. “I’m just saying…finish your date, go back home, sleep on all of this, and the smart thing would be to talk to Owen tomorrow. And since you seem like a really smart woman, I think that’s what you’ll do anyway. I’ll tell Owen not to worry about it, and weather he takes my advice or not is a whole other story, but…clearly he still loves you, and from the stories I heard about you, and how you actually did follow me out here, I think you still love him too. But, that’s just the opinion of a girl who spends ninety percent of her time with seals.”

 

     “Thank you.” Claire said with a small nod.

 

     “Sometimes it helps to hear from someone who has nothing to do with the problem, at least that’s what my sister tells me a lot, and then again she’s super nosy.” Kristen grinned. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”

 

     Once Kristen left, Claire knew _exactly_ what she had to do.

 

 

* * *

 

 

     Claire had tossed and turned the entire night, she felt bad for letting jealousy get the best of her while she was on her date with Ryan. Even when he drove her home, he still seemed to perfectly understand, explaining that everyone he worked with beforehand had warned him about the complications between her and Owen. He was a perfect gentleman the entire time, and Claire figured out after he left that it was _exactly_ why she felt no spark of any kind with Ryan. Owen didn’t like getting dressed up, he hated going on dates because he hated putting on a show – which is what he felt dates were, and sometimes Owen could be outright blunt – but then again, Claire could be as well. While they had their differences, they had similarities too; they both cared about the animals in one way or another, they both appreciated the truth far more than lies, and they were both stubborn as all hell. Owen Grady drove her _insane_ , sometimes in the worst way possible, but more often than not, in the very best way possible. Claire knew it was that insanity that made her write down everything she was going to say and memorize it all before she drove over to Owen’s place that very morning.

 

 

* * *

 

 

     When Owen had gotten home that night after dropping Kristen off, he couldn’t sleep to save his life. After a while of failed sleep, he had venture out to the lion enclosure to check on his girls, who all ignored him no matter how many times he called them and continued on with their sleep. Mr. Masrani had found the girls all-together a year ago, shortly after Owen’s previous lion had been put down and his mate had been transferred to a place more geared towards taking care of the elderly and dying big cats. Ever since the night he got the four baby lion cubs all settled into their new home, they always brought him a sense of peace; now it seemed like not even his girls could help him out this time. He was there until it was well into the middle of the night when he dragged himself back home and passed out finally.

 

     Now there was a loud knocking on his door, and no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, the person on the other side seemed unable to take a hint.

 

     “Alright, I’m coming, I’m coming!” Owen called out as he rolled out of bed.

 

     He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and whatever shirt had been lying at the end of his bed before he went to the front door. It took him another few knocks before he finally made it to the front door, he half expected Barry to be on the other side as that was one of the few people that actually visited him. Instead when he pulled the door open, he found Claire standing there, and she looked just as tired as he felt.

 

     “Claire…everything okay?” Owen asked. Kristen had told him that she talked to Claire, but when Claire had left the restaurant with the tiger guy, he expected Claire chose to ignore whatever Kristen had told her. He was going to run after her, but Kristen had stopped him from that and talked him into giving Claire space, telling him to pretend like she was one of the lions and she would come to him when she was ready to trust him. Owen didn’t believe that Claire would ever be back on his doorstep again. “Do you want to come in?”

 

     Claire nodded and slipped past him while he shut the door, trying to figure out if she was hear to yell at him or talk, or knowing her, a combination of the two.

 

     “Your place hasn’t changed a bit.” Claire mused quietly while she looked around, seeming too uncomfortable to sit herself anywhere.

 

     “Yeah, well, when you’re in charge of four lions, you don’t really have much time to yourself to change things around.” Owen shrugged. “Look, Claire, if you want to yell at me for showing up at the restaurant last night, go ahead.”

 

     “I don’t want to yell at you, not really.” Claire started and brought herself face to face with him, with little space between them. “I just wanted to talk, if that’s alright.”

 

     “Yeah, yeah it’s fine.” Owen nodded and gestured towards the couch. “Make yourself at home.”

 

     Claire hesitated before she went to the sofa and took a seat, Owen sitting beside her though he was careful to not sit too close, he didn’t wish to scare her off before she even said a word.

 

     “I don’t know how to start saying this other than…Owen, you drive me insane.” Claire stated calmly, Owen was half tempted to argue the point, but he stayed quiet. “Whenever we’re together we argue half the time, we can barely agree on even the smallest things, and for most normal people that alone would be enough to tell that there was no possible way for them to be together.”

 

     “Yeah, but”

 

     “ _But_ ,” Claire cut him off. “You drive me crazy in the best ways too. You challenge me where everyone else would back down, you help me realize that not everything can be perfect all the time, no matter how hard I try.”

 

     “Can I say something now?” Owen asked, Claire looked as if she wanted to protest, but she stayed quiet. “You drive me crazy too.” He smirked before he gave Claire a kiss on the cheek.

 

     “…That’s it?” Claire asked, though Owen noticed a glint of mischievousness in her eyes.

 

     Owen didn’t have a chance to ask his question before Claire’s lips came crashing down on his; he was still in shock of it when Claire pulled away with a huge grin on her face.

 

     “You were planning on doing that, weren’t you?” Owen asked.

 

     “Maybe.” Claire laughed. “So, what do we do now?”

 

     “How about we go on a date?” Owen watched her closely to gage her reaction; he wasn’t surprised by the instant confusion that crossed her features.

 

     “Are you serious?” She asked in disbelief.

 

     “Yeah, let’s go right now, no planning or anything.” Owen rose from the couch and held his hand out to Claire. “Let’s go grab some breakfast.”

 

     “Alright…but on one condition,” Claire said as she took Owen’s hand and stood beside him, a grin forming on her face again, “you have to get changed because I am not going anywhere with you in sweat pants.”

 

     “Oh, come on, it’s gotta be better than the board shorts.” Owen laughed.

 

     “It is, but I’m still not going out with you like that.” Claire countered.

 

     “Fine, fine, I’ll go get changed, and _then_ we’ll go out on a date.” Owen sighed.


End file.
